PITAMAHA: MIMICRY IN ARTS AND DESIGN 

DURING THE COLONIAL ERA
I Ketut Supir
Nengah Bawa Atmadja

I Gede Mudana
Department of Arts and Design Education, 
Ganesha University of Education, Singaraja

email: ketut_supir@yahoo.co.id
ABSTRACT

During the pre-colonial era the Balinese arts and design were dominated by the themes of puppetry which contained the Hindu religious teachings. When the Dutch colonial government controlled Bali, the Balinese arts and design changed. This present study is intended to explore the existence of the Pitamaha association and the attitude of the Pitamaha painters towards the domination of the modern arts and design taught by Spies and Bonnet. The qualitative method and the postcolonial theory combined with various other critical supporting theories were used in the present study. 

The result of the study shows that Pitamaha is the first modern association of arts in Bali. However, Pitamaha still integrated the pattern of the Balinese traditional association. In this association, the royal elites were involved as the mediators between Spies and Bonnet and the Balinese painters. Spies and Bonnet taught the modern arts which were different from and even contrasted with the Balinese arts and design. However, the Pitamaha painters welcome it. This could not be separated from the practice of teaching through hegemony and domination which contrasted with what had been desired by the Balinese painters who intended to maintain the Balinese arts and design. In such an ambivalent condition, they mimed the modern arts and design. The mimicry made was not intended to mime the modern arts and design; instead, the mimicry made was intended to interpret with reference to the norms of the Balinese arts and design. 
Keywords: Pitamaha, mimicry, arts and design, colonial era.
INTRODUCTION

During the pre-colonial era, the Balinese arts and design were closely related to Hinduism. Hinduism became the source which inspired the arts and design, and the arts and design were used as the media for transmitting the values of the Hindu teaching. The arts and design were created based on the principle of ngayah (sincere devotion) for God (Bandem, 1995: 99). In this context, the arts and design were not used as the space where things were expressed; instead, they were used as the unifying media with Siwa (the source of arts). 

During the Dutch colonial era, the Balinese arts and design changed after the Pitamaha association was established. The Pitamaha association, which was based at Ubud, was used as the arena by Spies and Bonnet to implant the ideology of the modern arts and design. Such a teaching of the modern arts and design gave different impressions to the Balinese painters. They intended to master the technology of the modern arts and design which offered advancement, renewal, rationality, and kindness; however, their intention to main their tradition was still strong. Such an ambivalent attitude occurred to the painters who belonged to the Pitamaha association.
RESEARCH METHOD


In this present study, the qualitative method was used to reveal the hidden meaning of a visible fact. This field study was conducted at Ubud and Batuan, where the derived Pitamaha association continued the style of Pitamaha arts. The data were collected through observation and interview techniques, and library research. The data were descriptively-qualitatively analyzed using the interpretative approach combined with various critical theories. 

DISCUSSION


The Pitamaha was established as a consequence of the anxiety about the fact that the quality of the Balinese arts and design was getting worse. Spies and Bonnet invited Cokorda Gede Agung Sukawati and I Gusti Nyoman Lempad to establish the Pitamaha association on 29th January 1936 (Djelantik, 1990; Couteu, 1999). The name Pitahama was adopted from the Old Javanese language, meaning ancestor. The word ancestor, in this case, refers to Lord Brahma (Vickers, 2011; Couteau, 1999). In the Hindu cosmology, Lord Brahma is the lord who creates everything in the world.

The teaching process implemented in Pitamaha referred to the modern teaching pattern. Spies and Bonnet taught the modern arts and design through a direct intervention as what is implemented in the formal educational institution (Djelantik, 1988: 31). The modern arts and design were explained using the examples of the works created by the modern artists. Actually, the examples given were not to be mimed; instead, they were only used as the media for making what was taught easily understood. This was different from the traditional teaching pattern, both in how an expertise was transmitted by a parent to his children and in the form of cantrik. In the traditional teaching pattern, a cantrik directly mimed what was done by his/her teacher. 

Spies and Bonnet also directed the painters to leave their collective identity in order to find their personal identity apart from teaching technical matters. The modern arts and design highly appreciated the personal identity and refuted the collective identity. This could not be separated from the autonomous art principle (Piliang, 2006: 130). In this case, autonomy means that, as an individual, a painter was independent from his environment and became an independent subject. In the autonomous condition, an artist can express his own feeling, as an art is a medium for expressing his feeling and strengthening himself as a genius autonomous subject (Wolf, 1981: 27). 

What was taught by Spies and Bonnet to Pitamaha was closer to the modern arts and design. They treated the modern arts and design as the arts and design which were superior, developing, rational, developed, and good. The Balinese arts and design, in contrast, were treated as the arts and design which were inferior, static, irrational, traditional and not good. The Balinese arts and design should be modernized. Such a difference caused the subject and object to appear, in which the subject positioned itself as something which organized the object. The subject constructed itself as “self” in order to differentiate it from the object as the “other”. It was what was understood of the “otherness” which could cause domination to appear to organize the “other”. Said stated that the East which appears in the Orientalism is a system of orientation which is tied together by a set of strengths which carry the East to the West, the western awareness, and then the Western empire. The eastern states were viewed within a framework which was constructed by the biological determinism and the teaching of political morality. The Eastern states were seldom directly viewed; they were carefully observed; they were analyzed not as states or people; instead, they were analyzed as the problems which should be solved or restricted as the colonial strengths openly desired that their territories should be taken over (Said, 2001: 263-269). 

The modern arts and design taught by Spies and Bonnet offered progress and renewal and attracted tourists. Bonnet suggested that the painters should paint the themes describing daily life as such themes were enjoyed by the European tourists who did not have the puppetry culture. On one hand, the Pitamaha painters were surprised at the modern arts and design which presented the forms of volume, the impression of being close and far, and presenting the bright and dark parts of an object. The painting which was produced was the result of what was observed from a natural object through the eyes. On the other hand, the painters had inherited the Balinese arts and design which was intended to give beauty but also to give a medium which contained the values of the religion which they adhered to. Therefore, it was difficult of them to leave the Balinese arts and design. 

On one hand, they intended to master the modern arts and design; on the other hand, they intended to maintain the Balinese arts and design, meaning that the modern arts and design and the Balinese arts and design attracted each other in their minds, leading to ambivalence. According to Bhabha in Ashcroft et al. (2001: 13), ambivalence is not only felt by the colonized group, but it was a condition which disturbs the authority of the colonial domination and the relation between the colonized and the colonizer. Therefore, the colonizer hated the discourse of ambivalence. 


The ambivalent condition encouraged the painters to mime the modern art and design. The mimicry made indicated that the modern arts and design and the Balinese arts and design were in a position which was not balanced. They mimed to occupy a position which was equal to the position of the western painters. Although mimicry led to equality, the Pitamaha painters were not able to equalize the Western painters. This was in line with what was stated by Fanon that the colonial subject was aware that it would never obtain the nature of being white although it was taught to obtain it (Loomba, 2003: 228). 


The painters mimed the perspective, anatomy, and brightness of the modern arts and design through the imaginative procedure; as a result, the result which was achieved was not in accordance with what was applicable in the West. They did not draw the object based on the mathematical calculation and scientific-analytic, as what was done by the Western painters. They employed estimated calculation; as a result, the “estimated” perspective and anatomy appeared (Couteau, 2003: 126). They mimed in order not to be the same as the mimed; instead, they mimed in order to mock. Gandhi in Budiawan (2010: vi) affirmed that miming does not fully mean following. Mimicry frequently contains the element of mockery.


When drawing a human being, the painters did not fully follow the realistic art norm; instead, they followed the puppetry pattern. The face was drawn to appear a three quarter, and the feet were drawn to appear from the front (Djelantik, 1990: 120). The anatomy was implemented on particular parts based on estimated calculation. The light made for the object was not based on the fact; in fact, it was based on imagination, making the object not to be perfectly seen. Such imperfectness resulted from the fact that they did not use to observe the object.  They drew human beings based on what they could memorize and stereotype. The human figure which was presented did not fully show “individual” as what was presented by the Western painters; instead, the human figure still showed the nature of “my being collective” (Couteau, 2003: 115). 

The Pitamaha painters mimed the modern arts and design inaccurately as they were technically weak; they were not dependent on the modern arts and design; instead, they would like to be ambivalent through the process of imitation. Their being unfaithful to the modern arts and design norms could also be their way of mocking the Western domination. However, they did not show it openly; they showed it by perpetually presenting the unreal colonial identity (Aschcroft et al., 2007: 118). 

The way in which the Pitamaha painters mimed and mocked was intended to obtain recognition from the colonial; or it could be a satire addressed to the Western painters that they could not fully control the local arts and design. It could also mean that the Pitamaha painters constructed the third space, through which they eliminated the hierarchy between the Western painters and the Balinese painters (Ascroft, et al., 2007: 118).  They could combine freely the modern arts and design and the Balinese arts and design through the third space in order to produce new forms. 

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

Fraction, tension, and negotiation took place between the dominating class and the dominated class in the process of the modernization of the Balinese arts and design. The Pitamaha painters mimed the modern arts and design inaccurately. Such an inaccuracy was used as the medium for showing themselves before the dominating class. Mimicry and mockery were used to show that the modern arts and design could not fully control the Balinese arts and design. Although being affected by the Western painters, the Pitamaha painters could show their identity. 

The studies in the Balinese arts and design from the perspective of cultural studies, including those using the postcolonial theory, are scarce. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct research on the Balinese arts and design using the critical theories. 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

In this opportunity, the writer would like to thank Prof. Dr. I Nyoman Darma Putra, M.Litt., Prof. Dr. I Nengah Bawa Atmadja, MA., and Dr. I Gede Mudana, M.Si. for their highly meaningful input and suggestions during the completion of this present study.

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